Presumably this will have the same basic arrangement as the JCSAT landing: same MECO speed and altitude, but with a slightly large propellant reserve. Will be interesting to see whether they use the same three-engine suicide burn; would be beautiful to see that during the day.

If RTLS result in 60% performance loss, then is it possible to try a RTLS on Thaicomm8 mission? It probably will be low margin but may be possible since Thaicomm8 is less than 3200kg according to Manufacturing information, while the max performance for F9 GTO mission is 8300kg.

Sorry, could not find the Thaicom discussion page so will post my observation here.On the same spaceflight launch schedule page, it says the Thaicom flight was moved forward. A first for SpaceX?

The first Iridium launch out of Vandy somewhat recently was moved up from August to July. So no, not a first entirely, but possibly the first time a stage has been reassigned to another payload.

(FYI haven't check my facts, going off memory)

There was a comment on Reddit that the stage wasn't reassigned, the stage for Thaicom got to McGregor after the one for Eutelsat/ABS, but the flight order got switched. Don't know how accurate that is.

If RTLS result in 60% performance loss, then is it possible to try a RTLS on Thaicomm8 mission? It probably will be low margin but may be possible since Thaicomm8 is less than 3200kg according to Manufacturing information, while the max performance for F9 GTO mission is 8300kg.

Thaicom 8 weighs less than JCSAT-14, so I think we can safely say that a successful landing on the drone ship is probable. :-)

If RTLS result in 60% performance loss, then is it possible to try a RTLS on Thaicomm8 mission? It probably will be low margin but may be possible since Thaicomm8 is less than 3200kg according to Manufacturing information, while the max performance for F9 GTO mission is 8300kg.

Thaicom 8 weighs less than JCSAT-14, so I think we can safely say that a successful landing on the drone ship is probable. :-)

Frustrating that at the supposed production rate the pipeline is not full and there's not already a good selection of F9s waiting at a warehouse near the cape. We're chronologically far beyond where we should be tracking an individual custom built rocket for a specific flight. Need to get production going, its not rocket science, its production. That's what we do over here in Detroit. Not sure whether I need to go out and fix the production problem for SpaceX or for Tesla Motors first.

Frustrating that at the supposed production rate the pipeline is not full and there's not already a good selection of F9s waiting at a warehouse near the cape. We're chronologically far beyond where we should be tracking an individual custom built rocket for a specific flight. Need to get production going, its not rocket science, its production. That's what we do over here in Detroit. Not sure whether I need to go out and fix the production problem for SpaceX or for Tesla Motors first.

The only time SpaceX did 3 fast paced launches they had the opportunity to stockpile those stages ahead of time.

This is the first time SpaceX is keeping sub 4 week launch intervals without a previously full pipeline.

I bet this will continue until reuse becomes a thing and Hawthorne/McGregor only has to deal with 2nd stages and fairings plus perhaps one first stage for each 5+ launches. Until then production rates will continue to increase, but not enough to keep the whole pipeline full.

In summary, what for you is glass half full, for me is glass 75% full !

Frustrating that at the supposed production rate the pipeline is not full and there's not already a good selection of F9s waiting at a warehouse near the cape. We're chronologically far beyond where we should be tracking an individual custom built rocket for a specific flight. Need to get production going, its not rocket science, its production. That's what we do over here in Detroit. Not sure whether I need to go out and fix the production problem for SpaceX or for Tesla Motors first.

How long have you been following Elon Musk led companies. Stated production rates are aspirational, that's it.

With SpaceX they may not need more than 16 cores a year once re-use is figured out and accepted by customers.

Frustrating that at the supposed production rate the pipeline is not full and there's not already a good selection of F9s waiting at a warehouse near the cape. We're chronologically far beyond where we should be tracking an individual custom built rocket for a specific flight.

Not true. The design has not been static long enough. There are still issues that have to be fixed that are fleet wide. Also, what good is it to land stages and not use the inspection data for design updates?

Thaicom 8 weighs less than JCSAT-14, so I think we can safely say that a successful landing on the drone ship is probable. :-)

Not if they see something in the post landing inspections that makes them change other aspects of re-entry. If they see, for instance, that re-entry heating was too high to allow re-flight of the stage, perhaps a longer re-entry burn is required, so less prop for landing.

Frustrating that at the supposed production rate the pipeline is not full and there's not already a good selection of F9s waiting at a warehouse near the cape. We're chronologically far beyond where we should be tracking an individual custom built rocket for a specific flight. Need to get production going, its not rocket science, its production. That's what we do over here in Detroit. Not sure whether I need to go out and fix the production problem for SpaceX or for Tesla Motors first.

This is merely "just-in-time" delivery. ULA, Arianespace, Roskosmos, etc., all use the same methods.

If the thermal loading on these GTO missions is just too high to land without extensive damage, I wonder whether they would add GTO-specific TPS, or even sacrificial TPS.

Not easily done, but that's beside the point in that the loading is high because of insufficient propellant margins to reduce velocity sufficiently, so adding more mass for TPS reduces these thin margins below what's there. Rocket equation is an exponential b!tch.

If the thermal loading on these GTO missions is just too high to land without extensive damage, I wonder whether they would add GTO-specific TPS, or even sacrificial TPS.

Not easily done, but that's beside the point in that the loading is high because of insufficient propellant margins to reduce velocity sufficiently, so adding more mass for TPS reduces these thin margins below what's there. Rocket equation is an exponential b!tch.

I'm thinking some sort of sprayed or painted-on sacrificial ablative TPS over those specific affected areas, to the tune of a bare fraction of a percent of the dry mass.